Even some more random election thoughts…

* I’m listening to NPR this morning, and they’re talking to people about how they voted and why. One guy said “I voted for Bush because he’s made a big mess and I think he needs to clean up his own mess,” or something to that effect. AARRRGGGHHH!!!

* I don’t know if this really was “the most important election in our lifetimes,” as it was advertised. Maybe, maybe not, I guess we have to see what happens. Or maybe I’m saying this because I don’t want this to be that important of an election…

* Bush says he wants to “reach out” to people who voted for Kerry. Yeah, right. He wants to “reach out” to them so he and his black-booted thugs can get our fingerprints and mugshots into a “bad citizen” database or something….

* When you factor in the “no gay marriage” amendments that passed everywhere with the Bush/Chenney “be afraid” campaign, I think what you get is a country that hateful and scarred, and increasingly retreating into its own and away from the rest of the world. A number of years ago, right wing nut job Pat Buchanan got into trouble for proposing a “fortress America” strategy with foreign policy. That seems to be about where we’re at.

* I have been reading the Daily Kos site a lot lately, and I liked this post quite a bit. I really hope that the democrats do take a time to seriously look at themselves, and I also hope that what they decide is that they too need to appeal to their base and that they try to revive the idea of liberalism in this country. But if this election pushes the part to appeal even more to the middle, then I’m changing my voter registration status.

* On the bright side of things:

–The state in which I live and most of the states I identify with (because I’m from there, I have lots of relatives and/or friends there, I have lived there, etc.) are blue. Well, except for Virginia, where I lived for five years, and also for Ohio, though that was while in Bowling Green and I never really “identified” with them. And it looks like Iowa still hasn’t decided things.

— Nader was a non-factor. Of course, if the dems try to become “Republican light” in 2008, I suspect Nader will be a factor again, and he might even get my vote.

— In Washtenaw county, 60 or 65% of folks voted “no” to proposal 2.

— Will’s elementary school voted for Kerry, so maybe there is hope for the future.

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I'm a writer and a professor at Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti, Michigan. You can learn more than you want to learn about me by clicking on "about." You can contact me by sending email to skrause at emich dot edu.